Finally.
History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
Monroe receives a call from his uncle Felix, an antiquarian living in Germany; while appraising the estate of one Josef Nebojsa, he's discovered a trunk full of Grimm books and weapons he thinks Nick will be interested in. But he's not the only one looking, and his colleague has already been murdered by Black Claw.
Hadrian's Wall are drawn in as the Black Claw symbol appears in Nebojsa's ransacked house. As Nick and the gang ponder Felix's offer, Black Claw operatives catch up and Felix is murdered. The race is on to find where Felix hid the trunk before Black Claw.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actor-Inspired Element: Adalind and Nick's birthdays - 14th April and 18th June respectively - are the same as Claire Coffee and David Giuntoli's. Averted when a Freeze-Frame Bonus of a page of the Grimm ancestry book shows that Nick was born in 1982, when David Giuntoli was born in 1980.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Monroe enters HW's Elaborate Underground Base for the first time, and is somewhat perturbed when he sees their big database of Wesen. Even more so when he learns he's in it.
- Call-Back:
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that the cache of weapons include a Dreifacharmbrust, a step up from the Doppelarmbrust Nick already owns.
- Out of sorts due to her mother's birthday, Adalind comments that she and Nick don't even know each other's birthdays. Nick responds with Adalind's birthday, which he knows from having arrested her that time.
- Seeing the haul of Grimm books and weapons, Hank says it looks like they got the trailer back after it was burned.
- Call-Forward:
- Monroe's skill with locks will be significant in a couple of episodes' time.
- The gang speculate what Black Claw could do with the book detailing Grimm ancestry.
- Description Porn: Monroe's Uncle Felix gets into such a detailed description of the book's history that it brings all the characters to a halt as they look on, bemused by his obvious love for books. Considering Monroe does the exact same thing with clocks, the gang are probably also bemused to realize from who Monroe inherited that trait.Rosalee: He is definitely your uncle.
- Dark Secret: Renard finds some dirt on the opponent of Andrew Dixon, the mayoral candidate he's backing. Dixon doesn't want to use it, but Renard has it quietly leaked to the press.
- Final Solution: Meisner says that Black Claw intend to destroy everything Grimm-related in the world. Especially the Grimms themselves.
- Loose Lips: No one is impressed that Monroe's mother has apparently been telling people that Monroe has a Grimm friend.
- MacGuffin: The trunk full of Grimm books and weapons owned by the late Josef Nebojsa, including three keys.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Not much is known about Josef Nebojsa, the previous owner of the trunk, but he was likely a Grimm. He also has three of the seven Treasure keys, implying (if you assume he inherited one from his ancestors), that he stole two back from the Royal families.
- Oh, Crap!: A minor one when Nick brings Trubel to meet Felix, who was prepared to meet one Grimm but not two. Violence is just about prevented by Nick and Monroe's timely stepping-in.
- Portmanteau: The gang visit Nick and Adalind's new place for the first time. When Adalind welcomes them, she describes it as a "fome" (fortress + home), which Monroe adopts.
- Rule of Three: Josef Nebojsa's trunk contains three secret compartments; the books, another compartment under that containing the weapons, and finally a small compartment inside the lock containing the keys.
- Shout-Out: The quotation is from Ulysses by James Joyce.
- Spotting the Thread: After opening the trunk of books and weapons, Monroe notices that the lock is bigger than it needs to be. Examining it, he finds a secret compartment concealing three keys.
- Wham Episode: The gang now have five of the seven keys, and know approximately where the knights' treasure is hidden.
- You Killed My Father: Monroe kills the Black Claw members that killed his uncle Felix.Monroe: You killed my uncle. [Woges] You shouldn't have done that.
